Originally Posted by brendanp

its funny how both sides just try to make themselves look like the good guy instead of actually trying to reach a fair settlement.

I don't think the university has tried to make it look like they are "the good guy". Obviously the information the university has been biased, but I don't think they've been anywhere near as bad as CUPE. All the university's statements have been respectful to CUPE, they never make them seem like the bad guy.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

I don't think the university has tried to make it look like they are "the good guy". Obviously the information the university has been biased, but I don't think they've been anywhere near as bad as CUPE. All the university's statements have been respectful to CUPE, they never make them seem like the bad guy.

Agreed. McMaster hasn't been doing anything to make itself look like the good guy in all of this. They haven't sent out information saying CUPE's demands are too high etc the way CUPE has been saying the Uni is being unfair etc.

The University really hasn't even been discussing the strike or making statements. All they've said is there might be a strike, jsyk.

The University is supposed to be serving its students and to do that they would need to be trying to avoid a strike which they been doing. They specifically asked CUPE to allow their membership to vote on the final deal they offerred. The University likely knows the TAs are unhappy and don't want a strike and feel they may vote yes on the deal and avoid the strike completely. Its a win-win if the TAs vote yes, school is disrupted and the TAs will have been given the chance to voice their opinion on whether or not what McMaster offerred them was fair. CUPE hasn't allowed membership to vote and continues to be far more self-serving an anti-student than McMaster (although it would be delusional to think McMaster's offers aren't trying to serve the Uni's financial interests first).

CUPE is the bad guy, TAs are the good guys and the University is somewhere in the middle.

Originally Posted by sew12

Agreed. McMaster hasn't been doing anything to make itself look like the good guy in all of this. They haven't sent out information saying CUPE's demands are too high etc the way CUPE has been saying the Uni is being unfair etc.

The University really hasn't even been discussing the strike or making statements. All they've said is there might be a strike, jsyk.

The University is supposed to be serving its students and to do that they would need to be trying to avoid a strike which they been doing. They specifically asked CUPE to allow their membership to vote on the final deal they offerred. The University likely knows the TAs are unhappy and don't want a strike and feel they may vote yes on the deal and avoid the strike completely. Its a win-win if the TAs vote yes, school is disrupted and the TAs will have been given the chance to voice their opinion on whether or not what McMaster offerred them was fair. CUPE hasn't allowed membership to vote and continues to be far more self-serving an anti-student than McMaster (although it would be delusional to think McMaster's offers aren't trying to serve the Uni's financial interests first).

CUPE is the bad guy, TAs are the good guys and the University is somewhere in the middle.

I would actually point the most blame on the institution, actually. Regardless of what position you're on, you can agree that they have provided the least amount of information...which frankly pisses me off to no end.

Originally Posted by lorend

I would actually point the most blame on the institution, actually. Regardless of what position you're on, you can agree that they have provided the least amount of information...which frankly pisses me off to no end.

What kind of further information would you like them to provide, out of curiousity?

Its obvious they haven't provided much info but I'm not entirely sure what additional info from them would really be necessary or help.

I think the most important thing they should have done and didn't was get more information out there about what would happen in the event of a strike prior to there actually being a strike. Students are panicked and many of them didn't know anything about the strike until very recently. There should have been a plan in place prior to the strike actually starting as to what would happen if TAs were to go on strike. You don't need a strike to actually occur in order to plan for this. Every course instructor knows what their TAs do and what would not be occuring if they were on strike and they should have been instructed to come up with an alternate plan for the course, at least a tentative one prior to striking actually occuring. I think it would help students if they knew what comes next prior to CUPE annoucing their strike. First years in particular are likely to be very panicked over this and stressed and that only serves as a further detriment to their education.

Originally Posted by lorend

I would actually point the most blame on the institution, actually. Regardless of what position you're on, you can agree that they have provided the least amount of information...which frankly pisses me off to no end.

Agreed. Also, we don't see any university representative in the forums, as Derek Sahota has been.

He's been answering questions the entire time and has been extremely helpful. I see it as the administration having something to hide.

Originally Posted by sew12

I think the most important thing they should have done and didn't was get more information out there about what would happen in the event of a strike prior to there actually being a strike. Students are panicked and many of them didn't know anything about the strike until very recently. There should have been a plan in place prior to the strike actually starting as to what would happen if TAs were to go on strike. You don't need a strike to actually occur in order to plan for this. Every course instructor knows what their TAs do and what would not be occuring if they were on strike and they should have been instructed to come up with an alternate plan for the course, at least a tentative one prior to striking actually occuring. I think it would help students if they knew what comes next prior to CUPE annoucing their strike. First years in particular are likely to be very panicked over this and stressed and that only serves as a further detriment to their education.

Dream about it. The administration only cares about themselves.

Originally Posted by Parnian

Dream about it. The administration only cares about themselves.

As does CUPE judging by their actions.

The TAs are the only ones in this situation who actually seem to care about students.

Originally Posted by sew12

As does CUPE judging by their actions.

The TAs are the only ones in this situation who actually seem to care about students.

Yeah, damn CUPE for trying to cap class sizes and reduce the number of students per TA. Damn them!

It's obvious you're just pissed that there's a strike. Deal with it. In the end, the TAs will benefit and I'm happy for that.

Originally Posted by sew12

What kind of further information would you like them to provide, out of curiousity?

Its obvious they haven't provided much info but I'm not entirely sure what additional info from them would really be necessary or help.

I think the most important thing they should have done and didn't was get more information out there about what would happen in the event of a strike prior to there actually being a strike. Students are panicked and many of them didn't know anything about the strike until very recently. There should have been a plan in place prior to the strike actually starting as to what would happen if TAs were to go on strike. You don't need a strike to actually occur in order to plan for this. Every course instructor knows what their TAs do and what would not be occuring if they were on strike and they should have been instructed to come up with an alternate plan for the course, at least a tentative one prior to striking actually occuring. I think it would help students if they knew what comes next prior to CUPE annoucing their strike. First years in particular are likely to be very panicked over this and stressed and that only serves as a further detriment to their education.

Two of my 5 classes use ELM. So I have no information about any of them as to what is going on.

Again, having a plan in place to say look, by x time on y day we will provide students info via z medium. Then at least some of the panic would go away. Not knowing anything is frustrating.

Originally Posted by sew12

As does CUPE judging by their actions.

The TAs are the only ones in this situation who actually seem to care about students.

Please stop posting.

It should also be noted the university had a chance to negotiate things with CUPE over the summer when no TAs would have to have a moral dilemma of crossing the line or not. Instead, they decided to take things at an extremely slow pace, and wait till it eruped during the school year.

Seriously, what's the problem here?

Originally Posted by Parnian

Yeah, damn CUPE for trying to cap class sizes and reduce the number of students per TA. Damn them!

It's obvious you're just pissed that there's a strike. Deal with it. In the end, the TAs will benefit and I'm happy for that.

Okay, sorry. I know a bit about the internal details, but I'm not 100% on everything, so I need to ask about the details on this.

My understanding is CUPE wants a pay raise for TA's ? But are they directly trying to reduce class sizes for each TA as well?

If this is true, then does it mean they want more TA's to spread the students over? And by that logic, would it not mean that the school would be paying MORE for each TA, on top of paying for MORE TA's ?

AGAIN, please understand I am not being offensive here. In this message, I'm neutral. I want to understand if I have that correct.

Originally Posted by Parnian

Yeah, damn CUPE for trying to cap class sizes and reduce the number of students per TA. Damn them!

It's obvious you're just pissed that there's a strike. Deal with it. In the end, the TAs will benefit and I'm happy for that.

Its obvious you haven't read or understood most of my posts.

I'm not talking about the actual terms CUPE was trying to negotiate for the TAs. Their job is to negotiate a deal that serves their membership. I really have no opinion either way on their specific demands. I support our TAs first and foremost and I want them to get a fair deal.

The actions I was referring to is CUPE calling a strike without a strike vote (see other posts on this board about a strike mandate vs a strike vote), and most importantly CUPE not allowing their membership to vote on the deal offered by the University. The University requested that CUPE allow their membership to vote on the deal rather than rejecting it for them and CUPE said no. Their membership has expressed a desire to vote on the proposed deal and they're still being denied.

Those are the actions I'm referring to, not what they're demanding for the TAs which seem perfectly reasonable in my eyes. I want a fair deal for my TAs, I just want the TAs to be able to decide for themselves on if the University has offerred them a fair deal.

TAs will benefit from being able to have their opinions heard via a vote on the final deal offerred by McMaster. TAs will not benefit from a strike that will see them get behind on marking etc. Many TAs do not want to let down their students but CUPE is threatening them if they decide to scab, this does not benefit them and sticks them between a rock and a hard place. TAs will not benefit from having their reputation ruined because of all the people who don't understand the strike and will be blaming them instead of CUPE and may become hostile towards their TAs. TAs will not benefit from a strike. They will benefit from a fair deal but not from being forced into a strike without being able to vote on whether or not what they are being offerred is fair.

ETA: Mike, the key things CUPE was asking for for the TAs is smaller tutorial and lab sizes, they want to cap them at a certain number. They were asking for a small pay raise, not a huge one as far as I could tell but according to CUPE literature a pay raise was not their main demand. The biggest demand from what I could tell was that the TAs want to be compensated for more hours, currently they are compensated for 260 hours, CUPE first asked for 280, then lowered to 270. TAs are overworked and just want to be paid for the work they're putting in.

Other issues are the discrepency between undergraduate TA pay and graduate TA pay. They wanted to raise the wage for undegraduate TAs so that the university wouldn't shaft graduate TAs by choosing undergrad ones over them just because they can pay them less. Also right now 5th and 6th year PhD students can't be TAs and they feel this is unfair as being a TA is a good way to help fund your PhD studies.

I see some people complain about how McMaster "isn't giving enough information about the strike", but I don't see how. They set up the labour relations website this summer with all the information. They sent out emails when necessary to let students know what to do if there's a strike. They've allowed tons of articles in The Sil about the strike. They update periodically on the Daily News about the situation.

I don't see what else they could do.

I would much prefer what the university has been doing during this situation than CUPE. McMaster isn't trying to scare students like CUPE, and the information Mac put out is nowhere near as biased as CUPE.

I just don't see what else Mac could have done. I think they gave us enough information when necessary. If someone wanted more information on the strike, I'm sure there's people they could have talked to. Mac isn't trying to hide anything from us. I think they've done a pretty good job staying as neutral (as possible right now) and letting us know ths things we need to know.

Originally Posted by Parnian

It should also be noted the university had a chance to negotiate things with CUPE over the summer when no TAs would have to have a moral dilemma of crossing the line or not. Instead, they decided to take things at an extremely slow pace, and wait till it eruped during the school year.

Seriously, what's the problem here?

They were dealing with CAW at the time as well. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything, but I think the CAW contracts were up before the CUPE contracts, so that's what was dealt with first.
(I could be wrong)